Posts Tagged ‘brewing’
The summer sessions have been jam-packed with work. I managed to go most of Summer I without writing a damned thing here. Well, it was intense, and I got an A, but I have no real idea how I pulled that off. I’ll take it, though. Summer II feels less stressful even though [...]
You all knew it was coming: another beer post. This is really where my motivation comes from–as my friend Sparrow was saying to me earlier this week, alchemy is irresistible. I tried to hold off, but the stuff I put out in between was just senseless emo rambling, so we’re back for another update on [...]
I have a few friends with gluten issues, and it’s a fantastic challenge to be a good host when they come by. I’ve sought out roast recipes, and tried my hand at baking cookies. But I had never tried to brew beer before without some sort of glutenous malt. Fortunately, this is an active topic [...]
I am always surprised when I rack the correct amount of beer into the bottling bucket, even though I use brewing software that accounts for liquid losses when transferring from the brew kettle to the fermenter. When bottling last night, I had the presence of mind to take some pictures, so I’ll share with you [...]
My first stovetop brew was a special bitter. It’s a fun style. Not too strong, so you can do it on the cheap, and nice for playing around with adjuncts and showcasing hops. It’s a happy middle between a fully alcoholic beer and table beer, tasty enough so you can toss a few back without [...]
My main brewing efforts have been with my friend, the Unknown Lamer, since last October. We use a mega-burner (basically a turkey fryer), and since January it’s been an all-grain setup with the construction of a 5-gallon mash tun. Since June I’ve been doing this little stovetop side project, in part because I don’t always [...]
So, I had mentioned a couple of variables I was fiddling with in this last stovetop batch. I wanted to try priming with maple syrup instead of corn sugar, and I also didn’t use Irish moss, unlike every other brew to date. I can report my findings now.
I primed it with maple syrup against my [...]
I was going to bottle tonight because Thanksgiving is next week. I even picked up the last element of my brewing kit today at the 5th Season gardening store–the Thief. But I didn’t get my bottles into the oxyclean bath yesterday, and looking at them today they were sufficiently funky that caution is advisable. (It’ll [...]
The krausen on my stovetop amber fell while I was out and about in northern New Jersey. There is still a ring of foam, but the center of the beer’s surface is more or less free of yeast. (I did some reading, and apparently US-05 can be quite bubbly for quite some time, so the [...]
The amber ale has more or less finished primary fermentation. The frothy mess at the top (the krausen) hasn’t yet fallen, but CO2 outgassing is down to one bubble every twenty seconds or so. I am not in the habit of transferring to secondary, as I haven’t done any dry hopping, and there’s no need [...]